News4More

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly employment report for March this morning. Markets have been nervous in recent days in advance of the report, and pundits have had a busy time forecasting what the report would likely reveal, and what it will mean to the economy and markets going forward.
Forecasts were all over the lot, ranging from a gain of only 100,000 jobs to the "whisper number" that as many as 300,000 jobs would be created. The consensus forecast was for 200,000 jobs added, with 100,000 of those coming from temporary hires of Census takers by the federal government, and 50,000 from hires delayed by the winter storms in February. The unemployment rate was expected to remain unchanged at 0.7%.
However, the picture was considerably clouded by Wednesday’s ADP employment report that 23,000 jobs were lost in March in the private sector.
The actual BLS report on Friday morning showed 162,000 new jobs were created, and the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.7%.
At first glance that is weaker than the forecast of 200,000 new jobs. However, the fewer new jobs than expected was largely due to the government hiring only 50,000 temporary census takers in March, and perhaps the other 50,000 expected census hires will show up in April’s numbers. The numbers for February were revised to show only 14,000 jobs were lost rather than the 36,000 that were reported a month ago.
So overall a report that was in line with expectations, and with no big surprises either way. Don't get too excited by it or let it exert undue influence in your investing.